


house rules

by Love_Me_Dead



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Meeting the Parents, there's lotsa toilet talk, toilet humour?, uh like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:34:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3822214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Love_Me_Dead/pseuds/Love_Me_Dead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meeting Luke's family at Christmas goes very wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	house rules

**Author's Note:**

> so like, my extracurricular writing teacher sort of forced me into writing this after i told her the story of what goes down when the upstairs toilet needs unclogging. this is all based on a true story, just pasted onto michael and luke. unbeta'd so feel free to correct any mistakes you find.
> 
> enjoy.

Michael is an only child and he’s used to calm Christmases with his small handful of cousins and the extended family all coming to visit. Michael is an only child and calm Christmases with his affluent aunt and uncle, very prim with their red wine and gin, are common.

So when Michael starts dating Luke and Luke invites him over for Christmas dinner (which he says is killer, so how can he refuse) he isn’t sure what to expect. He definitely doesn’t expect his quiet Christmas dinner with his small family when Luke has been going on soliloquies about his big family; his two big brothers and their girlfriends and his aunts and uncles and all their kids and little Zoe, his cousin. He doesn’t expect his quiet family dinners and his grandma insisting that they all hold hands and say grace together. He doesn’t expect his uncle criticizing his hair colour or his aunt calling his eyebrow piercing unprofessional.

Even though Michael bricks it all day before he shows up at Luke’s house in his best outfit that was still conducive to the boiling weather. It’s very relaxed. Luke’s mum adores him, his big brothers are kind and not at all as intimidating as he thought they’d be and little Zoe is sweet and gives him an excuse to avoid Luke’s uncles, who are a little intimidating.

Just as Luke promised, Christmas dinner is wonderful and it might be better than the mushy peas he normally has and Michael sort of falls in love with Luke a little bit more just from his mum’s cooking.

But after dinner, before dessert, nature calls and Michael hears that dreaded gurgle from the toilet as it flushes – or as it just doesn’t. In the middle of drying his hands, he dives to the ground and turns the water off, lest he flood his boyfriend’s main bathroom.

The water stops rising and Michael just watches it, a feeling of dread opening up in his chest. This is the shit of nightmares, clogging the toilet during a family dinner at his significant other’s house. This is the shit of nightmares and Michael reminds himself to keep calm.

“Okay,” he mumbles to himself. “Okay. Plunger.”

He looks around the toilet for a plunger, but all he finds is a small brush tucked nearly behind the toilet as though someone is ashamed of it. There’s an extra roll of toilet paper on top of the toilet but there’s no plunger. Michael opens the cupboard beneath the sink to be met with an image of bathroom cleaners and rubber gloves and _no plunger_.

He checks everywhere. He checks the shower, even though that would be weird, and he double checks the cupboard and the drawers that have extra hand-towels and bars of soap and he even checks the medicine cabinet which just has rubbing alcohol and Q-tips and pills.

This honestly cannot be happening.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, opening his thread with Luke before sending him _“do you people not own a fucking toilet plunger what the hell I need your help please”_ with shaky fingers. He hears a swell of laughter from the dining room and he immediately worries that Luke just told his entire family and this is just not the impression he wanted to make for his boyfriend’s family.

There’s a knock on the door. “Babe?”

“Hi,” Michael says quickly, opening the door.

“What happened?” Luke asks, stepping in and touching Michael’s cheek. “You don’t look well, do you feel okay?”

“I clogged your toilet and your grandparents don’t own a plunger,” Michael admits.

Luke chuckles. “They do, they just keep it in the downstairs bathroom. Let me go get it.”

Michael, momentarily comforted, is left alone again in the plunger-free bathroom to once again regret his entire decision to come here even though Luke’s family loved him.

Luke returns, carrying with him a plunger and kissing Michael’s cheek. “They’re going to think we’re making out,” he teases as he goes over to the toilet with it.

“I’ll do it, I’m the reason it’s fucked up, I should do it,” he says quickly.

Luke shakes his head. “You’re a guest and you don’t know my family’s way.”

“Your _way_? There’s only one way to unclog a toilet, Luke.”

“Oh, you’ll see,” he says.

Luke goes about plunging until the toilet flushes happily and he’s left holding a dripping plunger aloft the toilet. He guesses that he’ll set it down beside the toilet and they’ll get back to the table in time for dessert, a Pavlova topped with fresh blueberries from the yard.

“Can you get the window for me?”

“Like, open it?” Michael asks, squeezing between Luke and the tub to open the window, one of those ones that pushes outside and doesn’t have a screen. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think it smelled too much.”

“Oh, it doesn’t, I’m just about to throw the plunger out the window.”

“What?”

Luke doesn’t respond, tapping the plunger against the inner edge of the toilet to knock off excess water before he manoeuvers it out the window and gives it a hearty toss. Acting like this isn’t the strangest thing in the world, he closes the window and goes to the sink to wash his hands.

“What the fuck?”

Luke looks at him again like it isn’t the strangest thing in the world.

“You – you fucking tossed it out the window?”

“Yeah, I can’t carry it back downstairs over the carpet.”

“Why not just leave it beside the toilet?”

Luke shrugs. “I dunno,” he says. “I’ll get dad to fetch it later.”

And later, Michael goes out onto the deck with Luke once the temperature has cooled down just slightly and they wrap their arms around each other while Zoe plays in the blueberry bushes. The toilet plunger is nowhere in sight.

“Did your dad get it already?” Michael asks, leaning his head against Luke’s shoulder.

“No, I must have thrown it too hard,” Luke sighs. “It’s probably in the McCormack’s yard.”


End file.
